


it's like you never had wings

by quietlyintoemptyspaces



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Biting, Blood, Bruises, M/M, No Dialogue, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Derek, derek dreams about what-if scenarios, derek isn't innocent, stiles isn't either, the pack thinks they have an unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietlyintoemptyspaces/pseuds/quietlyintoemptyspaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he dreams Peter never killed Kate, never got the chance, because the fire never happened and nobody got hurt, because he did what felt right and then buried the remains beneath a spiral of wolfsbane.</p>
<p>In his dreams, the irony seems fitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's like you never had wings

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know.
> 
> One night (while I was supposed to be sleeping because that's just how these things work) I was listening to "Change (in the house of flies)". I love the lyrics. Well, my brain kind of started up with this and then just... ran. It's also where I took the title.
> 
> I fretted over the ending, but I think I'm happy with where I left it.
> 
>  
> 
> I also changed the rating from Teen to Mature.

Innocence is a stupid, useless notion.

Derek thinks of what he once considered his own, far away but not forgotten, and it tastes of lust and ash and brings bile to the back of his throat. Nobody’s innocent. Not Derek, not his Pack, and not Stiles.

He thought, once, that it’s what it was. Innocence in wide, human eyes, not knowing to fear the kind of thing Derek was. He knows better now, knows it was ignorance. Maybe a small part innocence, but not much. You can’t run with wolves and not become partly animal yourself. Impossible. Stiles is like a bird, all nervous gestures and flighty movements, and too often Derek wants to catch him, keep him pinned in a cage of claws, tear his wings apart feather by feather.

Innocence, what’s left of it, is fleeting.

-

They like to think of themselves separate from the wolf, their human parts all the more powerful for keeping the wolf on a chain, putting him away when not needed and calling him out at will. 

Derek has never called himself human. Once, for a moment, he thought himself cursed, an animal in a strange body, because nothing that looked so human could be so far away from humanity as he was in that moment. But sixteen was a long time ago. Derek was something else altogether then, not as much as he is now, but more too.

His instincts are dark, primal, the taste of a fresh kill, the scent of adrenaline in a chase. Too dark for a human; sometimes he thinks it’s too dark for a wolf. Maybe it’s just him.

The status of Alpha brings more with it than just power, but it’s hard to tell the difference between what was already there and what new dark things have been added. It’s still there, though, heavy like blood on his tongue, the instinct to take, and have, and destroy. Like he’s young again and wants to break fine bones and watch soft flesh bleed just because he can.

Laura used to call herself human in school, didn’t bother with the labels at home because everyone knew what they were then. Sometimes she’d joke that Derek got more wolf than the rest of them, tease that he even looked like one. Their mother called him blessed.

After the fire, for a long time, Laura was more wolf than human, and Derek understood her more then than he did before. But then she started playing human, and then staying human.

Derek’s never pretended he was anything less than he was.

-

Sometimes he dreams of wanton moans, a mouthful of blood, and broken feathers fisted in his fingers.

Sometimes he dreams of breaking something just because he can.

Sometimes he dreams he’s not really breaking anything but setting something free.

-

The Pack is strong, the human and not-human, the wolf and not-wolf. Sometimes they look like animals, sound like it too, and Derek relaxes because that’s something he can understand, the growls and the snarls and the roughhousing that is like puppies learning how to hunt. They lick their wounds, curl together to sleep, leave their humanity forgotten until they wake in the morning, when things will be awkward and tense and confused because they refuse to let their dual natures communicate.

Stiles lays there in the middle of the floor after the others have left, blinking up at the ceiling. He’s silent, for once, and Derek imagines wings spread out beneath him. It’s stupid to think that Stiles would have wings at all, or that he’d be anything like a bird because he’s not that breakable, not that fragile. There’s blood on his face, rust red, and darker with dirt beneath his fingernails.

He doesn’t bare his throat in subjugation. It’s more a threat or a taunt, and Derek wants to take him up on it, put him in his place, because there is an instinctive hierarchy that Stiles shouldn’t be aware of but is constantly pushing at. It drives Derek mad, makes his mouth water. He almost smells like prey. It’s tempting.

Stiles eyes stare at him, like a challenge, and he bares his teeth in a grimace of a smile, licks his teeth and then wets his lips. The movement catches Derek’s attention, like it was meant to, which means that the smile widens because he looked away first, forfeited the stare down like a Beta to his Alpha.

He growls, but it only furthers Stiles into laughter.

-

Stiles doesn’t kiss like Kate, uses his whole body, presses into Derek’s space, bites until he bleeds and scratches too deep with blunt human fingernails. It’s consuming, and wet, and bordering on desperate. Stiles moves from his lips to bite at Derek’s whiskers, mouths against his jaw and breathes into his ear, words that are more growl than speech, but Derek understands perfectly.

At the end of it, Stiles is beneath him, eyes wide and wild, thin, bloody lines down his torso and thighs, teeth shaped bruises along his neck and chest and shoulders, some spots weeping red where Derek broke skin. His legs are still spread wide, accommodating and inviting.

Stiles’ tongue tastes like blood and sex and Derek. There’s nothing innocent about it.

Stiles bites hard enough to scar, his mouth full of Derek’s blood and shared in a kiss that tastes like a heartbeat, and then smiles with red teeth.

-

His time with Kate was short. Fleeting but memorable.

He remembers holding himself back, watching her laugh because it was still wild, and he was still an animal, and she thought she was taking his innocence. 

Derek was almost human for Kate.

Kate, who thought watching his family burn would break him, because she didn’t understand how he worked. In the middle of it, Kate over him, holding him down, it felt wrong. Nothing with Kate ever felt right.

She kissed like she was human.

-

Sometimes Derek dreams of things that felt right with Kate, that he wanted to do but held back because she was a Hunter. She was human. And Derek… was not. Is not.

Sometimes he dreams of a mouthful of blood, dark and thick and sweet with life, flesh between his teeth, veins snapping on his tongue.

Sometimes he dreams of Kate beneath him, throat open and gaping and red, her breath a wet gurgle as she tries to stay alive.

Sometimes he dreams Peter never killed Kate, never got the chance, because the fire never happened and nobody got hurt, because he did what felt right and then buried the remains beneath a spiral of wolfsbane.

In his dreams, the irony seems fitting.

-

Stiles is a protector.

Derek feels foolish, not having realized it sooner, how Stiles just does, overthinking and without thought. He puts himself in danger when his friends need it, when his family needs it, regardless of the consequences. He does what’s needed.

Stiles is almost ruthless, brutal, in the way he fights. In the way he loves. Like a wild thing that cannot be caught. He’s as much prey as he isn’t.

After the fight, bloody and bruised and still high on adrenaline, Stiles throws his head back and laughs, runs. He smells like mountain ash and wolfsbane and enemy blood; he smells like family and love. 

Derek chases.

-

He doesn’t have to explain himself to Stiles the way he does to his Betas. And it’s strange, Derek thinks, that in all his fragile humanity, Stiles understands more about being a werewolf, the nature of an animal, more than the bitten wolves. Possibly more than most born werewolves, too.

Blessed, his mother called him, because he was always more wolf than man. He’s not sure how well that’s served him, for all he’s lost and what little he’s gained.

Derek was most comfortable on the run with Laura, after the fire. She’d called it fleeing, because Hunter’s were still there, waiting to see if there were any survivors they’d need to finish off; fleeing because it meant leaving behind the burnt-out living carcass of Peter. It was easy, zigzagging their way back and forth across the country and out of it, into the icy tundra of northern Canada and the humid tropics of Central America. Looking over his shoulder was almost second habit; Laura called it paranoia. 

Derek calls it instinct, and it’s saved him more than once.

-

Stiles lays like pale canvas beneath him, old scars and new and little spots that still weep with the proof of his life. There are purple patterns in the shape of Derek all over him that he presses into with thin fingers, a grin on split lips that moan Derek’s name like it’s a prayer.

The others don’t like it; he can see it in the way that Scott eyes him, the way Isaac frowns, the way Peter grins, like he’s using Stiles, taking advantage, because Stiles is younger, less powerful, so incredibly fragile, and Derek is the Big Bad Wolf intent on raping all the village’s virgins.

But Stiles isn’t a virgin and Little Red was never innocent.

-

Sometimes, Stiles forces Derek down onto his back and shows him what kind of an animal he can be.

Sometimes, Stiles fights with Scott because they’re best friends, even if Scott doesn’t approve, will never approve, and will probably never understand.

Sometimes, Stiles antagonizes Peter, just for the hell of it, gets beneath his skin with tooth and nail and witty rejoinders and sarcasm, greets the replying snarls with a slap to the back and a simple, “Long time no see.”

Sometimes, Derek wonders how Stiles has made it as far as he has.

-

There’s a picture in Stiles’ room, in the corner on the bookshelf, of a gaunt woman with her head wrapped in a scarf, sitting up in a hospital bed; there’s a wallet-sized photo tucked into the frame of the same woman, but with a headful of curly brown hair and Stiles’ eyes. Before Stiles let his hair grow out, Derek wouldn’t have thought they looked much alike, but it’s been awhile since he last shaved his head and it’s amazing how much he looks like his mother.

Derek supposes they have that in common. They don’t talk about it.

Stiles sleeps curled around Derek, half on top of him, lips pressed into his collarbone, mumbling nonsensical things. They’re not naked, but the bedroom door is locked and the Sheriff is right down the hall; he doesn’t know about Stiles and Derek, beyond whatever Stiles has chosen to tell him, but just because he’s home now doesn’t mean Derek is going to stay away. On the nights the Sheriff works, Stiles comes over to his place and they make use of the bare counter space, and the table, and Derek’s big bed that Stiles likes to starfish across.

Most of the time, in his own bed, he just starfishes across Derek. Not that Derek really minds. He actually enjoys the heat of Stiles’ skin, the smell of Stiles pressed again, the weight of him holding Derek down, the sound of Stiles murmuring his name.

Their heartbeats sound out a rhythm in the night that lulls Derek into rest.

-

Sometimes Derek dreams. Of dark things, of right things, of wrong things.

Sometimes Derek dreams of Stiles, strength under thin skin and lips driving Derek mad; of lust and pain and pleasure between mismatched sheets.

Sometimes Derek doesn’t dream at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Join me at tumblr! effortlessandnonetooserious.tumblr.com
> 
> (I have no idea how to do the linking thing...)


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